If You Lead
by monicawoe
Summary: Dean is injured by a Leviathan. Lucifer asks Sam a question.   Written for the prompt:  "I was ready to follow Sam."


"So Sam, do you still think you made the right choice?" Lucifer asked.

Sam pulled his machete out of the Leviathan's neck and looked for Dean, he'd been right behind him when they'd been ambushed. He ran across the warehouse floor and rounded the corner, yelling "Dean!"

Lucifer was waiting for him at the end of the hall, leaning against the rear exit door. "I asked you a question, Sam."

"Kinda busy." Sam muttered under his breath. He pushed open the door and looked outside. There was something moving near their car of the week - an old weather-beaten, dark red firebird. Sam ran towards it, dread filling his stomach with bile. He fell to his knees when he reached the car and grabbed his brother's shoulder, "Dean?"

Dean let out a low groan and tried to turn towards Sam. As he did, blood gushed out of his side. Dean pushed his shaking hand against his wound and said, "Hey, Sammy." He lifted his other arm up and pointed to his right. There was a headless corpse oozing black lying a few feet away.

Sam tore open the back door of the car and pulled out his duffle-bag. He dropped back down next to Dean, and grabbed a t-shirt and the first aid kit from his bag. He shoved the t-shirt against Dean's wound, and asked, "What happened?"

Lucifer laughed from behind him.

"Big-mouth shoved his hand into me. Didn't know they could do that." Dean coughed, and it sounded wet and wrong.

Sam pushed the shirt harder against Dean's side and fumbled with the first aid kit, trying to open it one-handed. "Neither did I. Well, hang in there, okay. I'll get a bandage on, and we'll get you to the nearest ER."

Dean nodded weakly, and then shook his head saying, "No, no - they'll be there. They're everywhere here. Have to go further away."

Sam nodded and ripped open two large gauze square packets with his teeth. He lifted Dean's shirt up as carefully as he could and bit his lip when he saw the wound.

"You know Sam, if you'd played things a little differently, you wouldn't be in this mess right now." Lucifer said, as he sat down next to Dean and stuck his finger into Dean's wound.

Dean flinched, his eyes rolled back into his head and then fell shut.

"Shut up." Sam hissed. "And leave him alone."

Lucifer laughed, "I thought I wasn't real!"

"You're not, you're - just go away." Sam tried to slow his breathing. His heart felt like it was pounding its way right out of his chest. Dean's bandages soaked through within seconds of being placed on his wound. Sam pulled out a new t-shirt and held it on top of the bandages.

"The thing is, Sam, it was supposed to be you - from the very beginning. If you hadn't fought me every step of the way, your life could have been _so_ much simpler."

Sam grabbed the roll of bandage tape from the first-aid kit and started wrapping the t-shirt and bandages to Dean's side. He pulled Dean away from the car as gently as he could and rolled the tape around him, once, twice and a third time. He put his other arm under Dean's legs and lifted him slowly off the ground.

"If you'd allied yourself with Azazel when he offered you his army...you and your brother would have had a very different life." Lucifer said. He opened the passenger side door and sat down.

Sam laid Dean down on the backseat and closed the door, careful not to knock his feet. He was tempted to feel for a pulse, but too frightened at the thought of not finding one. He hurried to the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition and drove as quickly as he could without attracting attention.

* * *

><p>"The leviathans were a mistake." Lucifer announced, appearing in the visitor's chair by Dean's bedside in the middle of the night.<p>

Sam hadn't left Dean's side since they'd let him in to see him.

"It's their appetite, you see. They're insatiable and they don't have any pesky morals telling them not to eat...well _everything_."

Dean's hand still felt cold when Sam touched it. He kept hoping for some kind of reaction, any reaction.

"I would have never allowed them to escape." Lucifer said sternly. "I would have kept Purgatory sealed, as it should be." He leaned back in the chair and folded his hands behind his head, "There would never have been an uprising in Heaven if you'd let me fight Michael."

Sam kept ignoring the Devil.

"He wouldn't have lasted very long against us, not in that half-brother of yours." Lucifer chuckled, "Now, if it had been _Dean -_"

"Shut. Up." Sam snarled. He clenched his eyes shut and pushed his thumb into his palm as hard as he could. When he opened his eyes again, Lucifer was still there, looking at him sadly. He reached his hand back out to Dean's.

"We would have set things right. They would have followed us, Sam. All of them."

Sam thought he felt Dean's finger twitch, and looked up at him hopefully. After a minute of staring he realized it was just his own hand, shaking so badly, the mattress was moving. Sam felt an unbearable feeling of hopelessness pass through him like a wave. There was nobody left to help them. No angels, far too few friends, and none he could call on for something like this.

"Oh don't be so sure about that." Lucifer said, "You really think there's not a single twisted soul in Hell that would help you?"

Sam looked up at him angrily, "I won't ask a demon for help."

"Who said you had to ask?" Lucifer stood up and placed his hand on Dean's shoulder. The sky outside the window behind him looked darker.

The monitors attached to Dean started to beep more rapidly. Sam stood up and looked down at his brother.

"They were ready to follow _you_, Sam." Lucifer said.

Dean's eyes fluttered open.


End file.
